


out here in the dust (if you don't have trust)

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sort Of, background fitzsimmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 09:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14077587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: "I'm sorry.""I'm sorry too."5x12 coda ft. some hurt/comfort and healing for Fitz & Daisy





	out here in the dust (if you don't have trust)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before 5x14. I will be writing much after 5x14. For now, have some healing and bonding and the quality FitzDaisy brotp content We Deserve.
> 
> Title from [One Foot by Walk the Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05v4nfUmBYI)

The reception was just as understated as the wedding that had preceded it: a collapsible trestle table decked out with the finest tablecloth two dollars could buy, matching red-and-white checked napkins, and paper plates full of assorted finger foods. Sandwiches and spring rolls, candy and cupcakes; the spread might have been more suited to a children’s party than to a wedding-of-the-century in a supernatural forest below the surface of the Earth. Nevertheless, the happy couple – from the looks of them, at least – had never been happier.

Unfortunately though, supernatural forest or no, the pressures of reality eventually began to sink back in. Mike and Davis melted away, and Deke took this as an opportunity to retreat back to the bunker-like safety of familiar ground. Mack followed after another round of congratulations, eager to return to Elena’s side. Daisy outlasted them all, but gradually her optimism and energy began to fade. Every time she caught sight of Coulson’s smile, every time the bittersweet timbre of his voice cut through to her, she felt a stab of rage and fear and love that scratched away at her happiness. As the crowd began to thin, there was less and less reinforcement, and soon, as happy as she wanted to be for them, Daisy found she could not look her best friends in the eye. Not when such angst was reflected in her own. 

Said best friends, of course, began to notice this as Daisy distanced herself from the crowd. Jemma frowned, thinking of Coulson, thinking of how she herself would feel if her own father had given her such news. She glanced over at Fitz and saw that his smile had faded too. He was staring with a melancholy sort of ache, at where Daisy now sat on a hillock with her back to them, hugging her knees as she looked out over the water. When Fitz caught Jemma watching him, he tried to flash her a reassuring smile, but it was swallowed quickly by guilt. He dropped his head, playing uneasily with the food in his napkin. It had felt too strange to hide his concern, he thought, but just as strange that a profound sense of guilt should steal away what he had thought to be unquenchable happiness. His fight with Daisy, her fear and anger, still played on his mind. It felt selfish, to be so flagrantly happy when she was still so clearly torn apart inside. 

Jemma saw the spiral he was turning down, and nudged his arm. She nodded back in Daisy’s direction.

“Talk to her,” she insisted: softly, calmly, firmly. She wrapped a chocolate slice in a new napkin and pressed it into his hands, and Fitz reluctantly took on his mission, trying to pull himself into some semblance of order, of focus, of empathy, as he trudged the surprisingly long, surprisingly steep distance to his friend. 

An apology sat on his tongue. Hung in the air. Refused to be spoken aloud. 

Daisy took a deep breath. 

“You can sit, if you want.” 

Small relief, at least. Fitz approached and sat beside her. He offered the slice in silence, and she took it with a nod of appreciation, and laid it to rest on the napkin on her other side before she resumed her forward outlook. For a while, Fitz stared with her, but the silence was sour and uncomfortable to rest in. He tried not to sigh, as that would draw attention to it. Daisy picked at the grass, but it was not nearly distracting enough, so in the end, she spoke. 

“I am happy for you guys, you know,” she said. “Really, I am. Didn’t want to bring the mood down, but… It’s been a bit of a long day.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Fitz snorted, “but I get it. You’re worried about Coulson.” 

Daisy snorted too. “That’s an understatement.” 

Fitz could hear it in her voice, see it in her knotted shoulders and the way she still had not looked at him, the depth of what she meant. She was terrified and angry and somehow endeared and loving and lost and a whole, complex mixture of extreme emotions, all at once. He knew that impossible extremity well, but he’d still not yet worked out a way to reach into one’s soul and soothe it. There was one wound, however, that he could still hope to heal. 

“I didn’t mean what I said, you know. Before, about Coulson. I don’t think trying to save him is stupid or naïve or whatever – besides, I mean, you know me. I’m the king of stupid naivety. Any other day I‘d be right there with you, but the truth is, this whole thing’s thrown me for a loop. First the Framework, then prison, and now this, it’s like everything I believe about myself and the world and the whole- the whole bloody universe is up in the air. I can’t make heads or tails of it, and, I dunno… sometimes I don’t think my heart’s in the right place anymore.” 

“I’m sorry too,” Daisy said. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I shouldn’t have gone after you like that, all that Hydra business. I don’t think you’re becoming some evil Nazi and I know you’d rather die than touch a hair on any of our heads. I’m really sorry I dug that stuff up. For what it’s worth, I think your heart is in the right place, or is at least looking for the right place. There’s just lots of right places it should be. You wanted to keep me safe, and that meant abandoning Coulson, so… wait, I didn’t mean-“ 

“No, you’re right,” Fitz insisted. “Abandoning. That’s just it. But I’m not too sure about the rest of it. You should’ve heard me, Daisy, I- I started _volunteering_ people. I knew somebody would probably have to die and I had a _list_ ready. I list _I wasn’t on._ Does that sound like a good heart to you?” 

Daisy swallowed her words, because the answer was _no_ and they both knew it. The effect was the same - a knife through both their guts - but after a beat, Daisy let out a wry laugh. 

“It just wouldn’t be Shield without an existential crisis after every celebration, now would it?” she jested bravely. Then, sparing Fitz the pressure to appear humoured, she pushed on with a more solemn tone. “Look, maybe you’re right. Maybe something is going on with you, God knows you’ve been put through the ringer at least as much as the rest of us, if not more lately. Fear and anger, they can twist a person. I’ve been there. But love and forgiveness, they can untwist you, right?” 

Fitz clenched his fist, and thought of the Framework. Of a man, like himself in so many ways, but twisted – twisted beyond what should have been recognition, except that more and more, he recognised. Shaking, Fitz felt the tears clog his throat. He couldn’t tell Daisy to stop talking. But now she was looking at him, and she could see the fear in his eyes, and changed her tack.

“A wise man once told me,” she reminded him, “that being good is a choice. Maybe you’re right about something changing inside you, maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re just scared and sick of dying. Either way, I know you know the right choice. When push comes to shove, I know in my heart that’s the one you’ll make, Fitz. That’s who you really are.” 

She smiled gently. Hopefully. Any other day, Fitz might have smiled back. He might have left it there, and waited for her kindness and faith and wisdom to work its magic on his troubled mind. Today though, lost in a sea of exhaustion and uncertainty, he felt like he was walking out on the mast of a stormbound ship, and that somewhere she was reaching out, waiting to lead him back to solid ground. He reached through the storm toward her. 

“The right choice is to save Coulson,” he said, his voice unsteady but his words true and spoken from the heart. “Save Coulson, and take the rest as it comes. Save the world. Together.” 

There was a firmness to that last word. A promise. One that they have promised each other time and time again: to never leave each other behind. Today, it settled over Daisy’s heart uneasily, but it settled all the same, and for all her doubts about the road ahead, she found in it some consolation. She shuffled closer to Fitz, nuzzling against his side so they could share the serene supernatural view. He put an arm around her, grateful to have her close again, and quietly, Daisy added her voice to his vow.

“Together.”


End file.
